ASIA's Fanart Update

Practice practice....

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:45:30 GMT

There is this particular way of coloring I still haven't mastered. I am almost tempted to e-mail my "Color Ink Goddess" but I don't even know her and she is in totally different fandom...I don't want to be a stalker (-_-;) I think I will talk to Tanaka-san, who used to use color ink a lot before she moved onto CG.

Manga and Pic

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 01:39:54 GMT

The 2p manga is after-the-tentacles-fluff... Jomy learned Blue's secret so Blue assumed Jomy hated him. But Jomy surprised him by insisting that instead of falling in such illusion trap tentacle creature set out, Jomy would do these things to Blue. In the end, Jomy begs to do these things to Blue...promies to "practice a lot" to make sure he satisfies Blue. Ah the translation is bad I know but I don't want to explain much more than that (^o^;) And a pic using my usual watercolor pencils. It turned out to be Harlequin Romance looking piece (-_-) Oh well...
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Terra Tentacle Manga finished.

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:50:53 GMT

All 8 pages are finished. It has been received pretty well so far...(^o^;) The basic premise is that this tentacle creature creates the illusion of your deepest desire and feed off on you while you get trapped in the illusion. You know how it goes...it's tentacle pr0n (^o^;) Real Jomy finally finds Blue (they are not "together" yet) and comes to rescue. Happy ending \(^O^)/ **NOT WORK SAFE**

Here is the previous 4 pages.

Here is the last 4 pages.

Tentacle Manga (@_@)

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 06:31:07 GMT

One conversation lead to another, and here I am drawing Tentacle Manga... Don't ask, these things happen to everyone, right? (9_9) this is what I have been spending most of my last couple of days. Don't mind the story...it's not done yet; I am still working on more pages. **NOT WORK SAFE**

[Fanart] I'm Here

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:15:18 GMT

My scanner always scans in light green as yellow...I gotta remember that for future. The second pic is the cell phone photo of the original. You can see most of the background is gone and green turned into yellow in the scanned image. Well no matter, more I improve my scanned pic gotta improve overall...
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I switched back to dip pen....

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:33:51 GMT

Right now I am ranked number 1 on Blue Search *trembling* ((((@_@)))) I feel little pressured... It must be the new website thing though. It should die down soon. Please. Do. *hiding under the cover*

For vivid color ink I figured thick outline really won't do with what I want, so I switched back to my good old nib type dip pen for outline. I used to use it mainly for black & white type of arts, but it seems to work pretty well with watercolor paper as well. My friend also sent me a bottle waterproof sepia ink, so I am all happy to experiment with it. I still use my multi liner pen for thickening lines here and there, but it gives more sensitive overall look Shown in the pic is not the ink pen, just a brush I use for watercolor pencils and color ink.

Terra Manga Weekend...

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 03:18:52 GMT

Many people in our neighborhood had fireworks on their backyard, so we just went around and enjoyed them all (^_^) Nice relaxing weekend...except I spent most of it drawing manga.

I registered Terra Search and Blue Search, and Blue Search was so quick to take care of the registration. I expected it to take at least couple of days... My usual website daily hit is somewhere between 20~40, but just 2 days I got registered with Blue Search, I received 77 hits on the first day and 99 hits on the second day (it will probably die down after the initial visit though). Since I only had 5 pics on my Terra page, I got little panicked and drew manga. In Japanese fandom, manga is more valued than 1piece pic, at least that's how I understand it. Of course my pencil scratch manga is no comparison to the beautifully inked and CG-ed manga I have been enjoying in many other Terra websites, but for me it will do (^o^;) So far the comments I have been receiving have been positive ones.

I am not going to translate them, because you probably won't get it much unless you know the series...so just enjoy them as is.

Little Puppy is growing up to be an wolf...
　

Behind-the-stage scene of Episode 2.

Jomy want to grow up so quickly to fulfill his fantasies... (Not Work Safe)

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I can't believe it took me all weekend to do just these little pages. I have no idea how these Japanese DJ makers can make so many mangas in such short period of time...

My hands are SO DEAD right now. Do I have to go back to work tomorrow...? *whine whine*

[Fanart] Mine

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 05:35:26 GMT

I am gradually getting used to the color ink...(^_^)

My friend made me a Terra banner!

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 05:12:29 GMT

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Tanaka-san, my high school buddy made me a site banner using my last Terra fanart! It's the most gorgeous banner I could ever ask for...it doesn't even look like my art! (*@O@*) Now I have this dilemma that my banner is a lot prettier than few of my mere practice Terra fanarts. I need to have more Terra fanarts ready before I can register Terra Search! \(@o@)/
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[Fanart] Whispering

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 04:08:26 GMT

This one turned out little better coloring-wise. Different art style, different outfit (-_-), different coloring materials, it will take tons of practice for sure.

I will try try try again

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:32:57 GMT

Gotta keep practicing. That's all there is to it...I won't give up! p(-_-)q

[Fanart] My Precious Blue

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:58:51 GMT

I have been watching Terra DVD and my head is in Terra mood right now...which inspires me with a lot mushier romance than GW. Also I am wanting to register Japanese Terra Search soon and they have strict rule for minimum "product" requirement before I can register. I need to make Terra banner art too...so taking a little break from GW for a little while.

Since color ink is so vivid, I am unwillingly going totally opposite direction from where I was heading with my watercolor pencils. I don't want to color in the way that can be easily be achieved (or achieved better) with CG! I must confess I am really getting frustrated with myself...I want to explore the better aspect of analog coloring, and here I am digressing from it. After I get used to using ink for a while I need to re-direct myself to the way I want to achieve.

I am going to take Princess out for a walk to get some fresh air (-_-)

[Fanart] Another JomyxBlue

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 04:09:07 GMT

Because color ink can be very vivid, I experimented with black outline (instead of my normal sepia outline) to see how it works... It definitely gives out different feel to it. This is more traditional Shojyo Manga-ish style I would say...

Terra DVDs arrived from Japan

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:39:08 GMT

Couple of volumes of Terra DVDs arrived from Japan. I will gather the rest of volumes eventually (these darn things are so expensive!). I just didn't want to wait for them to be imported in U.S. because I wanted to jump into it before Japanese fandom dies down...Japanese fangirls tend to migrate pretty quickly. Every single volume comes with 2 tarrot cards (almost like trading cards) and special fandisc CD with cast interviews and official AU highschool drama clips.

So I have been watching it...it's pretty different from manga for sure, but Soldier Blue is gorgeous nevertheless. Terra can give me the totally different output from GW. GW is definitely more boy-sh, man-ish, gives me the outlet for expressing full of youth and energy (at least that's the part I enjoy focusing on). Terra is more...inwardly emotional and deeply romantic. It can definitely broaden my horizon for character expression...I hope (^o^;) I was working on Heero pic before this but I was totally unhappy with the pose so I decided to pitch it and start from the scratch. Hubby's is just to tall and doesn't have the body balance I want (=_=)
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[Fanart] Sky High

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 05:06:23 GMT

Another color ink practice...I wanted to keep it very simple and light, so I only drew Duo this time (^_^) I may do Heero next.

[Fanart] Toward The Terra - Jomy x Blue

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:50:01 GMT

My first Terra fanart! Terra has always been such a sentimental piece to me ever since I was a kid...if you like retro SF, they recently published English-translated original Manga by Keiko Takemiya, "To Terra" that you can order from Amazon. It is 30-year-old piece so it is pretty retro, so it may not be for everyone. The story is just beautiful though. The "Toward The Terra" TV anime they made last year was simply gorgeous. I wasn't sure if they import Terra in U.S. so I started ordering Japanese DVD from Amazon Japan...Japanese DVDs are mighty expensive ouch ouch (T_T) But there were some new retro-anime that didn't get imported into U.S. completely (like Cyborg 009) so I really wanted to make sure I get to watch the TV anime. The limited version they released in Japan also comes with official parody drama CDs, like in BL parings I heard (^O^) I can't wait to get them...I have never watched the TV series yet.

I am pretty set on Jomy x Soldier Blue paring (the blond on the left is "top" and the blue one on the right being "bottom"). For those who don't know the story...they don't age and the boy on the right side is over 300 years old (^o^;) Because the story is not so super open-ended like GW, I want them to be very sugary sweet and happy in fanarts, absolutely no place for angst. They really deserve it.

Progress on Terra Fanart

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:49:53 GMT

While I was in Japan, I acquired a new love - Toward The Terra. The original manga is 30 years old, and I used to love it when I was a kid... They made a new TV anime based on it last year, and there is a pretty good fandom formed in Japan. I got exposed with quite a bit Terra doujinshi and now I am a big time Jomy x Soldier Blue fan (the blond kid on the left being "the TOP"). Funny I never looked at Terra with such fangirl-ish eyes (Soldier Blue was more sacred than anything else) but the way they changed the storyline for TV anime helped to make it easier for fangirl squeeing (^o^;)

Anyways...this is my first attempt for Terra fanart. Because of the overall story and settings, Terra universe is not as flexible fanart-wise (these darn outfit!!!) but I will be drawing Terra fanarts from time to time in between GW1x2 fanarts. This one is pretty much finished except for the background...photographed art always looks better to me, maybe because it's taken from a distance and overall tones are much darker? By the way this is done in color ink, too. I am just awed with how vivid the colors are...

[Fanart] Abandoned Experiment (^o^;)

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:50:23 GMT

I was just going to do a light sketch, so I was using cheaper paper sketchbook...then I wanted to ink it, then I wanted to try color-ink on it. Since this paper was too thin for water it got so lumpy I had to stop in the middle of it and just smeared some color for the shirts and background (-o-;) Next time I will make sure to go back to my regular watercolor sketchbook.

This is what I consider very old-fashioned way of fanart coloring (this reminds me of my school buddy's fanarts from 20 years ago!), but I really like how sharply color ink comes out when need to. Definitely more versatile than watercolor pencils...I still love watercolor pencils but I can probably do a lot more with color ink. I love exploring on this medium.
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[Fanart] Color Ink Experiment

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 04:33:43 GMT

First drawing after the Japan trip! (^O^)/" Being exposed with massive amount of Japanese fanarts really made me want to try something different. This is my first experiment with the color inks my friend sent me. It's pretty different...I am obviously not used to them yet but I can definitely see a lot of potential after many many (x infinity) practice...

This could have happened while I was there...!

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:06:55 GMT

If this happened a week before, I could be one of the victims. It's very painful to see things like this happen in Otaku mecca.
Murder in Akihabara
Ironically, one of the victim was found out to have hepatitis B, and other people who helped that victim could have been infected. My friend said she will start carrying vinyl gloves with her all the time just in case.

The most scary part of Tokyo nowadays... People who has no criminal records, no mental illness nor drug background etc., just any other ordinary person next to you can snap and commit most brutal violence. While I was there, there was another big murder news. This man raped & murdered his neighbor in his apartment, and promptly chopped her body up and flushed most parts down the toilet (because Tokyo trash rules are SO very strict), and answered TV interviewers etc. in very next day with a big smile. Again, no previous criminal record nor drug usage was found on this man. Unlike U.S. you really don't know what place to avoid or who to keep distance from. Any regular nice guy can go totally nuts with absolutely no reason and conduct most cruel thing with absolutely no reasons other than "feeling like it", and stay calm afterwards.

Tokyo is very exciting city and lots do happen there. But things have changed awful lot since I lived there and things are getting more and more twisted. Every time I go visit home, I always need some time to detox myself from "Tokyo mood". As much as I miss Japanese Doujinshi and Otaku universe, and believe me I do miss them SO MUCH, I still am thankful of not living there...

Highlights from my Japan trip Part 2

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:51:42 GMT

Trip highlights continued...this time, Otaku-related highlights! (^O^)/"

The Last Unicorn, Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Frosty the Snowman, Laputa, and Naussica!
Life works out such strange ways..while I was little depressed of having to stay at nursing home so much, all other things fell into place so perfectly like magic, just like Kaii Higashiyama art exhibit. It so turned out that a couple in their 50's I met online, which has nothing to do with anime/otaku world, used to work as an animation production manager. We met up for dinner and in our casual conversation he brought up what he used to do for living and my eyes just lit up (@o@) They invited me over to their house, which was about 30 minutes away, and wanted to show me some of the stuff he kept from his previous life.

Did you know the late 70's and early 80's animation such as The Last Unicorn, Hobbits, Lord of the Rings, Frosty the Snowman, The Fight of the Dragons, The Stingest Man in Town, were actually made in Japan?? I never knew that!! Anyways, yeah...these were actually made in Japan, in the animation studio he used to be a production manager, and he got to keep lots of stuff when the projects were over.

These are concept sketch etc. from The Last Unicorn. The last photo actually contains real pencil drawing...it was just SO amazing how a simple scribbles of a pencil can produce such a wonderful effect. I may have shrunk these pics too small..I can revert them back to the original size though.
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Actually cel from Frosty the Snowman, Hobbit, The Last Unicorn The Lord of the Rings...the top layer cel only contain falling leaves, Unicorn etc, but these backgrounds are actual paper drawing with color ink. THE REAL drawing. They were just SO amazing to see!
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Layered background&cel from the Lord of the RIngs and Laputa. Second pic has the break-down of the layers. I thought the Laputa background looked amazing but he pointed out that Hobbit background were far superior in quality (they were both done by the same background artist). Again, it was so encouraging to be reminded of how much can be done with analog arts.
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Storyboards and color settings from Laputa and Nausicca. These storyboards were amazingly detailed with Miyazaki's notes all over everywhere. He actually let me photo-copied some of the storyboards and even gave me the actual "rush film" they used for voice-dubbing. Some part was not finished when they were doing the voice-over, so some parts were not color, only line drawings. Very rare item to have...he had a bag full of the entire film (*@o@*)
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Suginami Animation Museum
Again this was another one of these things. While I was walking from the station, I noticed there were a new flyers everywhere that I have never seen, about Suginami Animation Museum. It was free and only 10 minute walk from grandma's house, so I got curious and went. I noticed they were going to have a special Galaxy Express 999 exhibit starting while I was there! How lucky am I?? (*@o@*)

This is basically a part of a civic hall. They have parties and weddings in the basement..but they converted top 2 floors into an animation museum. It is probably because many of the animation studios (including Sunrise) are located in Suginami District (where my grandmother's house is) so it made sense. I wanted to stop by Sunrise studio while I was there but I didn't want to go all by myself...maybe next time.

They have pretty good stuff there. Some exhibits were about how animation was filmed, both traditional ways and modern CG ways. They also displayed workspace of the well known animation artists.
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This was the workshop they had set up, where you can play around with the actual animation CG softwares professional people use. They also had extensive library with manga books that made into anime.I couldn't take any photos of Galaxy Express 999 exhibit because no camera was allowed in the special exhibit hall, but it was very good.

They had a circular wall with autographs from many of the famous animation artists. They also had human-size model of the First Gundam.
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Figures Heaven
I was having to look for some Tachikoma figues (from Ghost in the Shell) for my friend, so I ventured into places like Akihabara. I normally don't pay much attention to the figures, but boy they had EVERYTHING! I took few pictures of Star Wars/Indiana Jones related figures for hubby. They had very rare SW figures from the original series, priced $400~$800 each of these tiny things (-_-;;) I also got to see some Arcadia, Queen Emeraldas, etc.
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Animate
They have many Aminates (anime goods store) in many cities, and I got to go about 5 of them. Again I am normally not that big into Anime goods but my friends were looking for few stuff (^o^) This photo looks somewhat decent, but on the weekend every single isle in every single floor is packed with people and you can hardly move (-_-;;) This is Code Geass isle.

Ikebukuro - Otome Road!
While Akihabara is known to be the mecca for the male otakus, they are starting to develop Ikebukuro as a mecca for female otakus/fangirls. They have several used DJ/game stores, all emphasizing Yaoi and BL.
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The picture below is the "new DJ" shelf, where DJ circles actually make a deal with DJ stores to distribute their new DJs. The other side of the store looks like a library shelves, raws after raws all stuffed with used DJs with many many different fandoms. Because GW is somewhat older fandom, you can't find too many good DJs in these used DJ stores any more, you pretty much have to go to the DJ events to buy them... "Gintama" and "Katekyo Hitman Reborn!" seemed to be the hottest fandom in DJ world for right now. Most used DJs are $2, $4, and $6, depending on their weight and cover quality etc. New DJs are $6, $8, and $10.

I wanted to check out "To Terra" DJ because I used to love Manga when I was a kid and they just made anime out of it last year. It turned out they had so many GREAT Terra DJs! I bought ~80 Terra DJs. I like Uke Soldier Blue DJs.

Butler Cafe (Absolutely no photos were allowed)
One thing I really wanted to go this time was a Butler Cafe. Have you ever heard of a Maid Cafe? Well it has became such a big phenomemon and there are maid cafes everywhere in Tokyo. So one day a business woman thought "why not make the similar thing for women?" and made a Butler Cafe about 2 years ago. So far there is only 1 butler cafe in Tokyo, and it's in Ikebukuro Otome Road right underneath K Books (used DJ store).

The concept of the Butler Cafe is that you are the mistress, "coming home" to the cafe and the Butler and Footman serves you with afternoon tea, meal, etc. This is reservation-only place and you can only make the reservation from their website. They have many strict rules here as well, unlike Maid Cafe. When I mentioned it to my friend, she really wanted to go so she stayed next to her PC and waited for the cancellation (this place is always fully-reserved) and finally got an opening! This was a very strange experience, that was for sure. It was somewhat like a role-playing thing but they certainly hired quite many decent looking "footman" with various hair styles that seemed to appeal to the fangirls. Our footman had hair looked just like "Black Butler", recent manga series that seemed to be very popular.　I couldn't help but chuckle (^o^;) The afternoon tea was excellent by the way.

Uke-Duo DJ Event (no photos were allowed)
Uke-Duo Only DJ Event Final Mission EX! There are so many different DJ events every weekend, all over Tokyo and other cities. This particular civic hall also hosted 5 other Only DJ events in the same day. 1st floor was Bleach Katsuragi x someone (couldn't read) Only, 2nd floor was GW Uke-Duo Only, 3rd floor was Hagane Roy x Ed Only, 4th floor was Hagane Al x Ed Only, 6th floor was Gleragun Only. So in the morning there were many lines for each event, waiting for the opening.

The black booklet is the event booklet, middle flyer for the Duo-Only event for the next February. The right flier is the petit-only, where they try to gather a group of DJ circles from a particular fandom for the larger multi-fandom DJ events. The right pic is their event-favor. Chocolate with custom package (these type of custom package is becoming popular in Japan). The event committie usually makes several different type of such small presents...they were also hosting few games while event was ongoing and the winner also got few more presents.
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GW 1x2 DJs I bought from the event.

Kei and I did very well...too well for that matter. Everything we brought was completely sold out 30 minutes after the event started. We panicked a little but there was nothing we could have done...we just under-estimated the new crowd. Usually most Only DJ events customers show up in every event, so they are only looking for the brand new DJs. This time though, there were people only recently got into GW, so this was their first time coming to GW Only event, so they bought Kei's books although they weren't brand new. It was good to see GW was still attracting new fanbase though.

I also got to meet few of my 1x2 friends, including Yuuma-san and Koyuki-san. Several people also stopped by at our table and funny thing they all mentioned that they read my Japanese blog. What a surprise...unlike English LJ, I normally never receive any comments on my Japanese blog. I guess it is cultural. But it was encouraging to see people do read my Japanese blog. (^_^)

So overall, my trip wasn't bad at all. I had few more obligatory relative visits and attended a piano recital etc. but at least I got to cover all the otaku spots I wanted to go to and able to buy what I wanted. I am not big into sight-seeing and traveling...I am pretty indoor type. All my friends were doing well and we had a very good time venturing into the good-old fangirl activity together (*^____^*)

Highlights from my Japan Trip Part 1

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 04:41:17 GMT

Highlights of the trip! Some pictures were taken with my cell phone and I kept their size small (larger size e-mails cost more). These are non-otaku related pics and summaries. On my next post (hopefully tomorrow) I will post about otaku/fangirl related topics.

Cell Phone
Here is the cell phone I got while I was in Japan. Let me tell you, this phone came free, which means this was the LOWEST of their line. This phone had 2 camera lenses outside AND inside, so you can take your own picture while you look into the screen, and you can also use video phone calls using this phone! This also has magnifying glass function, emergency siren function, and even has a passometer function. Some higher function cell phones can be used as a credit card. They are not very keen on PDA idea...they rather have everything as a cell phone. After I came back, our Motorola phone we paid $200 for looked like a piece of crap (^o^;)
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The cell phone was a must have...so much more so than here in U.S. All of my friends are now mainly communicating with cell phone e-mails so I needed one to schedule a meet-up etc. You are not allowed to talk on the phone while you are on the train and bus, so most of the time cell phone e-mails were the only way you can get in touch with people.

Grandmother's house
My mother lives with my grandmother, well until grandmother went into the nursing home but anyways this is where I stayed most of the time. This is an OLD house...at least 80 years old. My grandfather was a dentist, so it's built little unusual, containing lobby, waiting room, and clinic room (converted into a library now). We used to play in grandfather's clinic room when we were little (^_^)
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As you see, this is an very old house...built with old-fashion manner with dirt walls and "Ranma" on top of the wall. Ranma is made so the air flows through the house smoothly with decorative wood plates. This house also has many "Shouji", sliding door with paper. All these used to make sense back in the day where people never needed air conditioning etc., but it's a very hard-to-live-house in this age (^_^;) I kept tripping every little floor obstacles when I wasn't paying attention. At least the weather was pretty decent so the temperature/humidity was tolerable enough.
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Grandmother's nursing home
My grandmother recently moved to the nursing home. Well it turned out my mother made me visit her/spend the night in the home quite a bit, so I ended up spending 1/3+ of my trip in the nursing home.

This pic is my grandmother's room in the nursing home. The idea here is that only somewhat independent people are allowed to enter, so you must be 65-75 years of age to qualify. My grandmother is 94, and she is a special case because some of her side of relatives are already in here so they allowed the exception. Unfortunately she is now in the complete care ward so she doesn't really live in this room. So this is where I stayed. This nursing home...well let's be blunt, you must pay ~$500K for a deposit (though they do pay you back what didn't get used) and monthly fee is additional ~3K per month. But you can't get in just by paying them a lots of money. They have additional "class" type of qualification...they have people like CEO of a major bank, owner of the historical hospital, former ambassador, etc. My grandmother came from one of these higher class type of family (obviously we deteriorated since then). I had to dress up and put on my best language/behavior to visit my grandmother each time...for a freaking nursing home! (-_-) But this definitely is a completely different society altogether.

The issue was that she goes to bed really early, like little after 7pm, and there was absolutely nothing to do. So I bought PSP to occupy my time.

Bought PSP!
So here it is. They had all kinds of pastel colors but I always stick with good old silver... (^___^) So I bought silver PSP.
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The only type of games I like is the multi-ending novels and scenario based simulations. These "Adventure" games simply do not exist in U.S. so I bought few.

Unfortunately not too many games were made for PSP yet but I am sure there will be a lot more in near future. There were quite large number of Boys Love (BL) games for PS2 console and few of them actually really grabbed my attention so I just have to wait for them to convert them into PSP games and maybe I can buy them from Amazon Japan eventually. I started playing one of the love simulation games...there are 5 boys and you have to pursue one of them to be his girlfriend. So far I have been failing my mission (-_-;;)

Food, food, food
Here is the few picture of our dinner table. They are very big into lining up many small dishes each meal. I kept telling my mother I didn't need that much food, but I couldn't stop her anyways (-_-;;)
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Here is a few picture from the restaurant/shops. I didn't get to take too many...
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Train Station

Here is Ogikubo Station for my grandmother's house, in Chuo Line. The train schedule is so precise, during weekdays sometimes train comes every 3~5 minutes, soo never miss a minute, except for "accidents".

One notorious thing in Japanese trains is the high suicide rate by jumping into the train. I just happened to be waiting for the train and it happened in the other side... The economy is going down and it is certainly affecting the society. As a matter of fact, I saw the train delay announcement by train jumping EVERY TIME I got on the train while I was there. They are all so used to it, they don't even make it to the evening news any more...they just quickly clean up and go. But delaying the train schedule is considered such a big crime, remaining family members of the suicide person will be sued for a million dollars. It still doesn't stop people from jumping though...pretty sad.

Miscellaneous
Every time I go home I bring back some of my mother's dishes. My mother has tons of dishes and she really needs to start getting rid of them...she is not capable of parting with things so giving them to us is the only way she can get rid of them. This time I brought back 2 sets of Japanese tea cups and saucers. I packed them pretty good and they all made it without breaking (^_^)

I like Taiko Drum Master game on PS2. They have arcade Taiko games in Namco related arcades. This guy was THE MASTER! My friend and I were just staring at him, scoring every single difficult levels on very complicated songs...then he used his cell phone to update the national ranking. Maybe he is famous in Taiko game ranking (^O^)/"

I really like this Japanese artist Kaii Higashiyama. I was very lucky that they had 100-year anniversary art exhibit of him while I was there! I went with my friend and we bought few prints.

My mother bought a laptop. I asked the sales person for the most user-friendly one for the novice people and they recommended NEC. This laptop already has the camera installed on top for skype vid-phone etc. so she can eventually talk with her grandson in Florida, and also has separate screen zoom button. It also has card-reader panel for some of these specialized credit card. Unfortunately they couldn't schedule internet cable installation while I was there so my mother is on her own on that part...

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I am going to bed now...I will type up other part (otaku/fangirl related) of the trip highlights tomorrow. Nity nite! (^_^)/"

I am back from Japan! \(^_______^)/

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:07:53 GMT

Hi all! I got back from Japan last night. I am pretty busy unpacking, re-sorting my piled up e-mails and all other stuff (still took Princess for a walk this morning though *^_^*), so please don't e-mail me etc. yet until my next post... In my next post I will be organizing my photos and will report my highlights of the trip, hopefully sometime soon (*^_^*)

Getting ready to go to Japan

Wed, 14 May 2008 16:04:03 GMT

I started packing. It seems half of my suitcase will be filled with souvenirs (-_-;) I will be leaving very early tomorrow morning, so this is probably the last post before I leave. I will be back in June 5th. Talk to you guys later~~~~(^___^)/"

I received Art Supplies from my Japanese friend! \(^______^)/

Mon, 12 May 2008 17:15:09 GMT

3 more days until my 3-week Japan trip. I am so not prepared... I need to start packing and I need to go get some souvenirs (@_@) I am mostly visiting relatives&friends, and I will be attending Uke-Duo Only DJ event (^_______^) I am going to get a camera cell phone over there so I can send some real-time pics to hubby (^_^)

It has been 3 weeks since we adopted Princess. For a while we seriously thought it was a mistake, but she is adjusting very well now. I think she is just specially cautious and personal type of dog, which is not a bad thing. She is walking better on leash every day, (we are walking her twice a day) and she is great playing fetch (^_^) She is getting happier every day. The first pic was on their website and the second pic was taken right after the nature park walk on Saturday. Can you tell how she is glowing? Big difference from the first sets of pics 3 weeks ago! (^_^)
Before: After:
Now I will be gone for solid 3 weeks...LORD please please watch over hubby and Princess (@_@)

Here is my most recent "Lazy Apple Pie". I didn't feel like doing anything fancy to the top crust, so I just poked air holes with fork \(^O^)/
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Tanaka-san, my Otaku/fanart buddy from middle school, is now only using CG and no longer using any analog art materials. She and her family recently moved into a new house, and she just wanted to get rid of her old art supplies completely (due to the limited Japanese housing..she has 2 kids), and asked me if I would like to have them. Of course I screamed YES!!! so loud in the e-mail (^O^)/"

So I just received a sea-mail from her. It was like the biggest Christmas of all! (*@O@*)

First, 30-color Caran D'ashe Watercolor Pencils. Looks like she hardly touched any of them. She said she only tried it as an experiment but she still preferred her good old color ink better.

18-color set Liquitex Acrylic Gessos. They are supposed to be like in-between watercolor and oil painting, water soluble when wet and hardens when they dry, so you can do little thicker coloring with them. I never used them so I have no idea how to handle this...probably works great for the background. I probably need different type of paint brushes. Again it looks like she used them some but doesn't look like she used much.

This is her prized possession, 36-color Dr. Ph. Martin's color ink. She definitely used them a lot. I still remember wanting to be able to use color ink myself when I was a teenager, but alas they were too pricey for me at the time (still are...^o^;) I never used them either but I am so excited to be able to try.

Fixiatif spray (prevents pastels etc. from smudging-I use it for all of my fanarts), ink for pen nib (for outlines), little bit more of Liquitex Acrylic paint, and air spray for color ink. I have no idea how to operate air spray, so I need to ask her.

Too bad I don't have time to experiment with these right now...most likely I would like to tackle color ink a lot when I get back from my trip. I am going to see Tanaka-san while I am in Japan, with all other buddies from middle/high school. Some of them still draw fanarts and make Doujinshi or fandom computer games and attend DJ events, and it's just so great we are keeping up with these fun hobbies after all these years (many years...) We always cheer each other and encourage each other of our otaku-activity. We already got couple of days set fpr get-together. I can't wait to see them \(*^________^*)/